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ALUSA Atom Desktop

Phoronix: ALUSA Atom Desktop

For the past several weeks I have been testing out the ALUSA Atom Desktop with Linux. As implied by the name it's an Intel Atom powered desktop/nettop computer, but this Atom system comes out of Portugal from a small Linux-focused start-up company.

Here's the thing about pricing: everything costs more in Europe because the prices are converted from USD using the following formula:

price in USD - $ + €

Example:

AwesomeGPU price: $250

Price in Europe: $250 - $ = 250, 250 + € = 250€

no, because the portuguese unlike, say, the americans or chinese that want to sell higher quantities at a lower profit, they prefer to sell much lower quantities at a much much higher profit margin

that and the 23% tax rate

which by the way you wouldn't have to pay since you are buying it outside EU. But again, porkies have no business management skills or anything, and that's why it's a bankrupt country that has to buy stuff from china and doesn't even bother rebrand it.

Better buy AMD based barebone directly from Foxconn instead

Hi,

I don't see much benefit in buying this thing from ALUSA, when you can buy just as good FoxConn barebone with FoxConn brand, with AMD CPU, probably for less money. OK, ALUSA might have linux preinstalled, but I imagine most Phoronix readers can do that themselves.

I've been running AMD E-350 based FoxConn nT-A3500 machine for a year and a half now. All 100% Open Source, running Debian, with open source Radeon drivers. It works great. I'm using it to play movies on TV, as a home internet router/firewall, as a download machine for longer downloads and generic home server. I didn't have any issues installing Debian Sid on it.

I've been running AMD E-350 based FoxConn nT-A3500 machine for a year and a half now. All 100% Open Source, running Debian, with open source Radeon drivers. It works great.

Good for you, but Hon Hai Precision Industry have problems with Linux support in the past http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 and there is no guarantee for proper Linux support in other their products (except mentioned nT-A3500). That why products with proper BIOS/UEFI and guaranteed Linux support, like ALUSA, System76 and ZaReason, is still important.

Good for you, but Hon Hai Precision Industry have problems with Linux support in the past http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249 and there is no guarantee for proper Linux support in other their products (except mentioned nT-A3500). That why products with proper BIOS/UEFI and guaranteed Linux support, like ALUSA, System76 and ZaReason, is still important.

What seems puzzling is that many linux hackers (kernel and otherwise) and commoners seem to buy Apple hardware and noone seems to be venturing/looking into the market of Hi-end linux machines.

I know that i would be all over a machine with MBPr specs that will run linux flawlessly.

I'm getting old - my eyesight wouldn't give me any improvement for a retina display compared to a regular fullHD one at 24".

But talking seriously too, the total addressable market is way too small. Say Corp A creates such a laptop for 2k and ships it with Ubuntu.

How many of the 1% of linux users would consider it? Let's be generous and say 5%.
Then how many of those would abandon it because a competitor offers a better keyboard/trackpad/more ports? Over half, given the tech-inclined audience.

You just couldn't sell much of a single model. And even with a fuller range, the costs would skyrocket over the sales.